


The Passion

by AiChikaneEnma



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Boss/Employee Relationship, Fluid Sexuality, Internal Conflict, M/M, Married Characters, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:56:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10641249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AiChikaneEnma/pseuds/AiChikaneEnma
Summary: Xanxus is a successful business man married to a woman, but Squalo's has him wrapped around his little finger like a toy. What answer does the Parisian night hold for him? Mostly Xanxus' internal conflict with an eventual epiphany about his feelings towards Squalo.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fanfiction during my sexuality crisis in year 11 (so like last year). I recently recovered it again in my folder and thought that I might as well just posted it. Sorry for all the superfluous internal monologues and I hope you enjoy it! Feedbacks are always appreciated.

_ “I was fine being alone. It was just natural that I was alone. _

_ That was until we met each other. _

_ Now that I’m all alone _

_ I understand just how big that person’s existence was to me…” _

 

Xanxus turns on the reading light beside his bed, but lowers the intensity, lest to disturb the sleeping companion by his side. His rimless glasses tiredly glint as he glances over the dancing figures on his notes. Xanxus flicks the cap of the fountain pen off, his calloused left hand smooth the creasing edges of the papers and hold the notes in support, while his right hand carefully crosses off insignificant statistics mottling on the page. He flips the notes over and scans the draft. Well, the company is doing better than the predicted revenue and all his assets are able to liquefy this year, although, Xanxus’s brows furrow into a faint streak of annoyance, the new taxing system is preventing his company from reaching its maximum potential. There is nothing he can do about that, except cursing the current incompetent government and perhaps withholding his company’s shares? Anyway it’s only the end of the financial year of Xanxus’s first term as CEO and with such resounding success, Xanxus has plenty of time to draft the course of action for next year.

 

“Are you still working boss?” The suddenly rustle of the bed sheets startles Xanxus. He turns around, just to be greeted with Squalo’s lazy grey eyes reflecting the hazing light from the lamp. “Take a break boss. I respect that you are hard-working, but Jesus Christ, it’s 1 fucking a.m.”

 

“Shut the fuck up and sleep already.” Xanxus stifles a smile. His hand leaves the warm surface of the papers and reaches over to touch Squalo’s tousled hair instead. His fingers trace the outline of Squalo’s scalp, the tiny bumps of Squalo’s follicles. “You hair is getting longer. Have you ever thought about cutting it?”

 

“I thought you like it.”

 

“I sure do.” Xanxus leans in to give his companion a lazy kiss. Well it’s definitely enough to shut Squalo up, and the tired man returns the favour before turning away. What to call Squalo? His partner? His subordinate? His lover? What’s in a name, when all it does is conveying the illicit and secretive nature of their relationship? His wife? Definitely not, because Squalo, despite being beautiful and enticing, is still very much a man. And Xanxus is married. To a woman.

 

What does it make Xanxus then? A homosexual? He does not like that word. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth to be grouped with one of those flamboyant men parading in Venice’s busy canals every March when Mardi Gras comes around, their faces splattered with garish make-up and skin-tight leotard. No, Xanxus shudders, he is very sure that he likes women. At least he enjoys having sex with women, and his four-year marriage, albeit childless and loveless, is a very strong proof of his heterosexuality. Yet Squalo’s existence beside him wrecks his entire case, reducing the debate of Xanxus’s sexuality to ash and dust.

 

Bisexual?

 

Xanxus half-heartedly throws his notes on the reading table and turns off the light. He sits up and stretches. Lethargy swims over Xanxus and his eyelids droop, but as if shaken by a latent fear and confusion, Xanxus bolts awake and stares at a sleeping Squalo, whose hair is long enough to spread across his bony bare back. Damn, he looks like a woman from this angle, and for a moment Xanxus is convinced that he is having a secret love affair with a woman. A very flat-chested woman maybe. A transgender woman. That should explain everything right? But as much as Xanxus tries to deny it, the sleeping person beside him is a male-identified girlish-looking man, who admittedly, excited Xanxus more than any women ever did. Squalo, Xanxus decides, is full of mystery. It is as if he is an ancient oracle waiting to be discovered by men of purposes like Xanxus, so he can unravel their systems of self-belief and break all the preconceived notion of themselves. A magic book, whose pages when turned, speak only the truth, nothing but the pure truth. And just like pure oxygen, it reacts violently with Xanxus, burning him, breaking him into debris in order to rebuild him into something irreversible. It is as if all the times spent before Squalo has been a lie.

 

Pansexual?

 

“I am married you know?” Xanxus voices his guilt into the silence of the night. The droning sound echoes slightly before drowning itself. It is not really guilt though, because he has done it before, be it his subordinates’ wife, his wife’s sister, her friends, his business partners’ wives. Women come to him like flies are attracted to rotten meat, and it would be impolite of Xanxus to turn away the delicious meals displaying right before his eyes. Anyway, it is not as if his wife is guiltless either. Her string of lovers flourish like Xanxus’s success as the company’s youngest CEO. But unlike Xanxus, she never seeks out a lover of the same sex. What does this make him?

 

Xanxus wraps his white shirt around his waist and moves to the balcony. The humid air splashes over his face, but the wind has started to pick up. Xanxus leans towards the glass table on his left and reaches for the Marlboro, with half of its contents in the brim-filled ashtray. Xanxus fumbles for the lighter on the table but it is not there.

 

“Of course I know boss.” Xanxus swirls around, with his heart rumbling lowly beneath his rib cage. There is no moon tonight, and the only way Xanxus can see the bony outline of Squalo’s face is behind the yellow flickering beat of his lighter’s flame. In the dark, he looks more beautiful than any women Xanxus has ever made love to. “But if you love your wife, we wouldn’t be here would we?”

 

There are truth ringing in Squalo’s voice. Does it mean Xanxus love Squalo? Does that mean he, a married, heterosexual-identified cisgender man, is in love with another man? Love, for Xanxus, is irrelevant. Romantic attraction and passion, for Xanxus, are like bridges that lead to sex, and once the destination has been reached, they are destroyed. It is men’s intrinsic desire to conquer and dominate. Jeanette Winterson once said “Men are creatures unfit for romantic love”, and Xanxus invariably agrees with her because it is true for him. He knows no love, feels no anger and sorrow and suffers no heartbreaks. But Squalo is different. If Xanxus has to choose a pretentious literary metaphor to describe his lover, he will probably pick the Bible, because the more he reads it, the less it makes sense for him. Yet, just like fanatics who worship this ancient text that is horded with lies, Xanxus finds something in Squalo that unequivocally makes sense. It is a passion that wakes Xanxus up from his slumber and sets him free. Squalo’s existence has grown so big in Xanxus’s loveless life that it is hard for him to imagine a world without Squalo.

 

“If you think I’m divorcing my wife for you, you are fucking crazy.” Squalo steps closer to Xanxus and brings the flame to the dangling cigarettes. Squalo’s eyes glimmer like sapphire beneath the blowing smoke puffing from Xanxus’s nostrils.

 

“It’s not like you hate this or anything.” Squalo leans across the balcony and looks at the spilling light from the Eiffel Tower. Paris is very much alive. “There will come a time when you will have to choose between me and her and I know damn well who you will choose, but for now, let’s get back to bed. You have work tomorrow don’t you?”

 

Even with his back turns away as he walks towards Xanxus’s bed, Squalo looks radiating and Xanxus realises he has never desired anything this much. There is something in Squalo’s voice that deeply shakes Xanxus with rage, and what is it? Regret? He watches the trailing figure of his secret lover slowly disappears into the darkness of his bedroom. Xanxus gleans over Paris pensively. Maybe he is in fact a heterosexual man who loves another man. Heterosexuality, Xanxus decides, never include the possibility of a man loving a woman. He has suffered no trauma that young lovers often acquire on their path of self-discovery, but somehow, the thought of losing Squalo fills him with anger and despair.

 

There are a lot for Xanxus to think about, but right now all he wants is to sleep. With such thoughts, he shuts the balcony door behind him, allowing the darkness to bury him alive.

 


End file.
